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Prerequisites — Managed in Your AWS

Complete the following before onboarding for the Managed in Your AWS delivery model. Most prerequisites are common to both operating modes; a few differ depending on whether your team operates the deployment (self-managed) or Serval does (Serval-managed) — see Managed in Your AWS.

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AWS account

• A supported AWS account that you own and control
• The ability to complete the setup steps Serval provides during onboarding

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Domain and DNS

• A domain you own with the ability to create DNS records
• DNS records for:
  • app.<your-domain> — the Serval web application
  • *.api.<your-domain> — backend API services (subdomain-based ingress)

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Private network access (optional)

If the deployment needs to reach resources on your internal network — on-prem Active Directory, internal LDAP, self-hosted Git, internal APIs — plan the connectivity path before onboarding. See Private Network Access for the common AWS patterns (Site-to-Site VPN, Direct Connect, Transit Gateway, private DNS resolution).

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LLM / agent API keys

Provide your own keys for the AI providers Serval uses at runtime:

• Anthropic API key — primary provider for AI agents and help desk functionality
• OpenAI API key — used for embeddings, image description, and specific model tasks

These keys are installed into the deployment during onboarding and never leave your environment.

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Additional prerequisites by operating mode

• Self-managed — administrator access to the account during setup, and a team able to apply and operate the deployment (working familiarity with Terraform and AWS). Serval provides the deployment bundle and setup scripts; see Self-managed deployments.
• Serval-managed — the internal approvals needed for Serval to operate the deployment in your account.

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Onboarding phases

1. Prepare the AWS account and access
2. Provision and deploy the stack
3. Configure core integrations (Slack, AI keys, OAuth apps)
4. Account setup (teams, users, workflows)

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Next steps